Food Security

CFR Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett says President Barack Obama's agriculture development and food security initiative holds promise, but it must focus on how to assist women, who are responsible for the majority of agricultural work in Africa.

Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely.

For over a half-century the Egyptian government has sold cut-rate wheat flour to bakeries for the production of bread. Many Egyptians rely on this subsidy, but in the face of a looming global food crisis, the program may cost billions of dollars for the new Cairo leadership.

Renewing America

In this issue of Food Outlook, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports on global supply and demand balances, and warns against further supply shocks as prices continue to rise.

Renewing America

As the world approaches the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals--which include a goal of reducing the proportion of hungry people by half--the 2010 Global Hunger Index offers a useful multidimensional overview of global hunger.

A report from Oxfam arguing that hunger in Africa is not inevitable. The report says that the world’s emergency response requires an overhaul so that it delivers prompt, equitable, and effective assistance to people suffering from lack of food. Oxfam also argues that governments need to tackle the root causes of hunger, which include poverty, agricultural mismanagement, conflict, unfair trade rules, and the unprecedented problems of HIV/AIDS and climate change.